UNITED STATES
Kentucky abortion law holds
The Supreme Court on Monday left in place a Kentucky law requiring doctors to perform ultrasounds and show fetal images to patients before abortions. The justices did not comment in refusing to review an appeals court ruling that upheld the law. The American Civil Liberties Union had challenged the law on behalf of Kentucky’s lone remaining abortion clinic, saying that “display and describe” ultrasound laws infringed on physicians’ speech rights under the First Amendment. In Kentucky, doctors must describe the ultrasound in detail while the pregnant woman listens to the fetal heartbeat. Women may avert their eyes and cover their ears to avoid hearing the description or the fetal heartbeat.
VENEZUELA
Executives get house arrest
Six US oil executives held in an overcrowded Venezuelan prison for two years on corruption charges were on Monday granted house arrest. The partial release of the six employees of Houston, Texas-based Citgo was confirmed by two people familiar with the case who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the case. The six were hauled away by masked security agents while at a meeting in Caracas just before Thanksgiving in 2017. They were in the country to attend a meeting at the headquarters of Citgo’s parent, state-run oil giant Petroleos de Venezuela. The two people said that lawyers for the six men had made the request to be granted house arrest due to health concerns.
UNITED STATES
Coinventor of barcode dies
Engineer George J. Laurer, who coinvented the barcode and helped to transform the retail world in the 1970s, has died at age 94. The former IBM employee’s funeral was on Monday held in his hometown of Wendell, North Carolina, a family obituary showed. He died at home last week. Laurer is recognized as the coinventor of the Universal Product Code, which can be found on millions of products, services and other items for identification. Fellow IBM employee Norman Woodland, who died in 2012, is considered the pioneer of the barcode idea. He patented the concept in 1952, but was unable to develop it.
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
Venezuelans to need visas
Entry visas are to be required for Venezuelans, who have moved to the country by the thousands amid an economic and humanitarian crisis, officials said on Monday. The measure goes into effect on Monday next week. Until then, Venezuelans would be able to enter the nation using only tourist cards that can be purchased in airports. There have been waves of legal and illegal immigrants from Venezuela in the past several years, with an estimated 30,000 living in the Dominican Republic, virtually all illegally after overstaying their tourist permits.
MEXICO
Group alleges illegal fishing
A conservation group trying to protect the world’s most endangered marine mammal on Monday said that hundreds of fishermen massed in dozens of boats to fish illegally in the Gulf of California. Activists with the Sea Shepherd group said that they witnessed about 80 small fishing boats pulling nets full of endangered totoaba fish from the water near the port of San Felipe on Sunday. Those same nets catch vaquitas. As few as 10 of the small, elusive porpoises remain in the gulf, their only habitat. The group said that the mass fishing was a new tactic to ensure that totoabas could not escape the nets.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was